Let's bring back the "NO NIT" policy to Brevard County Schools

The reason I started this petition was due to my daughter’s recent experience with this disease. We came home on a Friday after school, and I worked on her hair while she was in tears for 3 hours straight, only for us all having a sleepless night to back at it again Saturday and Sunday. She was good to go back to school Monday. After a grueling weekend of me cleaning, cutting and de-nitting my child’s head she went right back to the place where Jane Doe that is sitting next to her still has a present infestation!!! Now it’s only a matter of time until my Daughter gets it again, thanks to policy.

My issue is the policy Brevard schools have, which is the “shhh, do nothing” policy. Teachers and principals know that this issue is going on for months now, but not acting because they can’t. Who is this policy helping? Unfortunately not saying anything is the reason that Brevard schools have this lice issue. Over 10 years ago Brevard dropped the “NO NIT” policy because students were missing too much school. In my opinion, kids should miss school if lice and nits are present.

Bringing back the petition is the only way our schools will beat this on-going issue, and lessen the burden families are faced with after numerous lice outbreaks that spread to the whole family! Schools need to be teaching and notifying parents how to successfully prevent, treat and eradicate this issue and change the policy back to the “NO NIT” so students won’t be infecting other kids. Schools need to be more proactive and bring back the once a semester head checks, so that parents are not dealing with this issue numerous times a year. All I want is for the school to acknowledge there is an issue, inform other parents and give them a chance to learn how to treat and prevent. If a school knows that this is going around like a wild fire, the school should be informing parents, bottom line! If I got a heads up weeks ago, my daughter would not have gone through so much mental and physical pain.

So you see the point to this petition is to get back the policy that so many schools still implement, because it works!

Please sign the petition and share with everyone you know, share on Facebook & tweet it . 

Why do you want to sign? It's simple having back the policy that many schools nationwide still use is to help lessen the outbreak of lice! Kids get checked regularly the kids that parents don't check, the kids that parents don't treat, the kids that give it right back to your kids after you just spent the whole weekend cleaning and de-nitting, and hundreds of dollars in treatments on, higher water and electric bills went up due to the parents that do nothing!

Thank you!

INFO ABOUT THIS ISSUE;

The National Pediculosis Association, recommends the No Nit Policy as the public health standard intended to keep children lice free, nit free, and in school. Pediculosis represents one of the most common communicable childhood diseases and whether or not we understand how this has evolved, it is important to acknowledge head lice as a problem when raising or caring for children. The Spirit of the No Nit Policy is to minimize head lice infestations as a public health problem and to keep children in school lice and nit free.The No Nit Policy encourages each family to do its part at home with routine screening, early detection, accurate identification and thorough removal of lice and nits. Establishing consistent guidelines and educating the public about procedures in advance of outbreaks helps minimize inappropriate responses. Early intervention provides the needed assurance for those who have successfully eliminated an infestation that everything possible is being done to prevent new outbreaks when children return to groups where close contact is inevitable. Repeated exposures to pesticide products put children at risk. Parents need to be informed that chemical treatments may also be dangerous for children with certain pre-existing medical conditions and/or medication regimens. Families with pregnant or nursing mothers should be given advance notice that early detection with manual removal of lice and nits can serve as a safe alternative to pesticide lice treatment products.

Strategies that can make this work; 1. Proactive Community Education: The community is given a baseline understanding of the louse, modes of transmission and the importance of safe and effective control measures. Information-sharing targets everyone in the circle of responsibility for children -- from parents, siblings, friends and neighbors to school nurses, teachers and principals, to pharmacists, physicians, product manufacturers and government agencies. 2. Routine Screening and Early Detection: Vigilant screening of children for head lice and nits plays a pivotal role in pediculosis management. Early detection offers the best opportunity to manually remove head lice and nits without pesticide exposure. This directive is consistent with traditional preventive medical and communicable disease control methods. 3. Manual Removal of All Lice and Nits: There are no safe pesticides, scientifically proven to be 100% effective against head lice, nits or nit glue. Reliance on head lice treatment products that are ineffective promotes repeated use of potentially harmful chemicals and contributes to ongoing infestations, outbreaks, and resistant strains of head lice. 4. Temporary Dismissal of Children with Head Lice and/or Nits: Administrators and health personnel must take all reasonable measures to help ensure that infested children do not join the group setting. It is more than fair to expect that uninfested children will be safeguarded while infested children will be cared for with sensitivity. Monitoring with enforcement through scheduled and announced group screenings encourages parental compliance and promotes community cooperation and individual accountability. This does not mean panicked emergency pick-ups. The goal is to avert a crisis mentality by enabling families to keep their children lice and nit free. There are practical approaches that include readmitting children whose parents have done an excellent job of nit removal but may have missed a single nit. This nit should be removed immediately, a step that both supports the No Nit Policy and allows the child to return to class. If schools simply followed such a no-nit policy and emphasized early detection, lice would not be such an overwhelming and controversial issue today.

The deliberate ambiguity on school lice policy began when administrators interpreted the no-nit policy as strictly exclusionary. The no-nit policy, as defined by the National Pediculosis Association, emphasizes a well-informed, self-reliant parental community that focuses on preventing outbreaks, panic and misinformation. When a sound policy is followed, there is no need for exclusion.

Please sign if you believe we need this policy back. Please share this on all your social media sites, as we need as many signatures as possible to make a change!